This rally could have been predicted by using Google Trends.

[lacedwithkerosene]

The markets tend to go up the day after heavy news and search traffic. I had noticed a week-long trend of increased searches but the market had been staying even, so it was to be expected that it would make a strong move. If you were following search trends during the last couple of weeks where price was very stable but drained a few cents every day, search volume for bitcoin was remarkably flat.



http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

[ribuck]

1. Buy some bitcoins.
2. Do something newsworthy so that Google Trends will rise.
3. Sell bitcoins.
4. Profit!

[bb]

Well, it was by me at least 



http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

This would also have made you buy on Aug 03, losing money.

[lacedwithkerosene]

This would also have made you buy on Aug 03, losing money.

This is a search volume graph, not a financial graph. The market lags a day behind heavy news and search traffic. Price may shoot up on a day that search volume falls. Do you have historical daily prices saved somewhere? I do not recall if btc price fell significantly on the 4th.

[bb]

It's not exactly easy to extract dates from these charts: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg5zig5-minzvztgSzbgBza1gWMAzm1g2za2gWMAzm2g5zxzi1gVolzi2gUO

[Tasty Champa]

This would also have made you buy on Aug 03, losing money.

This is a search volume graph, not a financial graph. The market lags a day behind heavy news and search traffic. Price may shoot up on a day that search volume falls. Do you have historical daily prices saved somewhere? I do not recall if btc price fell significantly on the 4th.

fell on the 4th and fell significantly on the 5th:
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg30zczsg2011-07-04zeg2011-07-06zvztgSzm1g10zm2g25

[lacedwithkerosene]

fell on the 4th and fell significantly on the 5th:
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg30zczsg2011-07-04zeg2011-07-06zvztgSzm1g10zm2g25

You selected July, not August.
August 3rd: Search volume goes up (as price happens to fall)
August 4th: Price rises (as search volume happens to fall)
Again, the day after higher search volume, the market seems to have reacted.

[laanwj]

All the crystal ball gazers were too busy predicting a further decline to even think about the possibility of a rally